I'll link back to Monday's post on this topic because a lot of the sentiment is the same, but it's interesting to see Glasnow so high and Taillon so low on Law's list. Taillon is a really interesting study in prospect development and statst; my own opinion of both him and Gerrit Cole had dropped a bit in the first part of last season because their minor league results are/were mostly uninspiring, but seeing Cole's debut and his progress at the big league level after the Pirates unleashed him in September made me pretty seriously re-think the way I look at the results of the Pirates' most talented minor leaguers. It's certainly true that Taillon's minor league stats have been a touch on the disappointing side (relative to his status as the #2 overall pick, I mean; obviously by any other standard his results relative to age and level have been quite good), but I also see a kid who always displays good control and a low home run rate that made it to Triple-A as a 21-year old. It's hard not to be excited about that, even if it seems like he slides a little bit lower on these lists every year.

It's also worth noting how high Meadows is and how McGuire isn't ranked at all. This is the discrepancy I was talking about with him and McGuire on Monday. Obviously, there's a lot of variaibility in the opinions of two guys that were just drafted and have just played so little; I think we can take comfort in knowing that there are people that like both of the Pirates' first round picks from last year quite a bit.

About Pat Lackey

In 2005, I started a WHYGAVS instead of working on organic chemistry homework. Many years later, I've written about baseball and the Pirates for a number of sites all across the internet, but WHYGAVS is still my home. I still haven't finished that O-Chem homework, though.